


If the Sun Refused to Shine

by Canon_Is_Relative, stardust_made



Series: The College AU [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, College AU, Drama, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Near Death, Oh sweet angst, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-02-25
Packaged: 2018-03-02 05:15:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2800880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canon_Is_Relative/pseuds/Canon_Is_Relative, https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardust_made/pseuds/stardust_made
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four months before Sam left for Stanford a werewolf got its claws into him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If the Sun Refused to Shine

**Author's Note:**

> Another special feature.
> 
> [Thank You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1z4vkPWkLQ) by Led Zeppelin. (My all time favourite version is [Duran Duran](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W0lEtgg8yo)'s. I know, I know - Dean would be appalled.) 
> 
> Warnings: Disturbing imagery

_Interlude_

_Dean_

Four months before Sam left for Stanford a werewolf got its claws into him.

Then it got its jaw into him, and then it crushed him under its fifty-pound body when Dean shot it dead.

Under the moonlight, in a small clearing between the centuries-old pine trees, Dean had seen the werewolf actually stand on its hind legs, lifting Sam up between its front paws like a monstrous shaman lifting its scapegoat to the skies before sacrifice. Sam’s cries had mingled with Dean’s as he sprinted forward, already firing his first shot. The werewolf had dropped Sam before landing on its front feet and turning to Dean, all rabid red eyes and snarling teeth. It had whipped its head back around just as quick and gone for Sam’s insides with a vicious, throaty gurgle, magnified by the utter silence of the night up in the mountains. Still running, Dean had emptied all the silver in his gun into the massive black back, ready to launch himself at the son of a bitch and fight it off Sammy with his bare hands. His knife had been lost in the scuffle when he’d killed the smaller werewolf.

He must have been on an adrenaline high, because he didn’t even remember rolling the beast’s dead body off Sam.

The ground under Dean’s feet undulated at the sight of his little brother: blood everywhere, gashes _everywhere_ , Sam’s pants interspersed with sharp cries.

“Hey, hey, hey.” Dean had dropped on his knees, taking off his jacket and pressing it to Sam’s left shoulder where there was a striking dark spot. Dean’s fingers found the unmistakable sticky warmth that only one substance had.

“I got you, I got you. You’re going to be alright, Sammy, just keep still, okay, Sam...” Dean had babbled on and on, dialing for an ambulance. He tried to get Sam to hold the jacket against his shoulder, while taking off his shirt to press it against Sam’s chest. He ended up shouting their location to the emergency service dispatcher, the line breaking up so badly that white spots of panic danced in front of Dean’s eyes. He repeated their coordinates at least five times, unable to hear anything distinguishable from the other end of the line; then it went dead. He stared at his cell for all of two seconds, then went back to his stream of reassurances. He somehow managed to take off his t-shirt one-handed, pressing it against Sam’s lower abdomen where another big dark spot was forming. Sam’s entire lower abdomen was one big dark spot.

Sam tried to speak then, managing only Dean’s name, the rest coming out as a stuttering recital of feverish consonants. It stopped Dean, hearing his own name. His mouth dried up in every sense of the word and he just gazed at Sammy, head spinning; only his hands steady at keeping the pressure on Sam’s wounds. The reality of their situation caught up with Dean, seizing him with terror worse than anything he could remember.

They were in the middle of a forest in Leon County, Florida. Sam was bleeding so bad, odds were he would die of blood loss within minutes. A helicopter ambulance would have been there on time only if it was literally circling the sky in a radius of a few miles. The odds of _that_ happening…Dean didn’t even know a number that small.

The odds of that happening at one in the morning were close to a number Dean knew perfectly well. Zero.

Sam went quiet abruptly, only repeating the letter ‘D’ a couple of times. The moonlight was bright. It was falling on Sam’s pale face, making the hair stuck to his forehead seem to glisten. His eyes slowed down, their frenetic movements broken by long moments of stillness, eyelids kept shut. Until they opened, starkly lucid, meeting Dean’s. Sam’s chest was rising and falling under Dean’s hands like a small boat in an uneasy sea.

Dean gulped. He shifted and rolled awkwardly until he was sitting behind Sam, cradling his head and upper body. Sam’s blood smeared over Dean’s naked torso. Sam’s hair smelled of damp; of cold earth and blood, blood again.

All around them pine trees rose a hundred feet high, mute and lacking in shades. Their blackness stood out against the white mist of the stars; a swarm of celestial fireflies that had come down to see Sam fall and Dean remain standing, helpless.

Sammy began shivering. Dean touched the side of his face against his and found it clammy and cold.

“Sam?” he said. There was no response. “Sammy?” Dean said. “Sam. Sammy.”

He gulped again, then again, then _again_. He pulled back a little until his face rested against the side of Sam’s hair, coughed around the lump in his throat and did the only thing he could do anymore.

_‘If the sun refused to shine,_  
 _I would still be loving you.’_

Zeppelin. Good for the road, good for making out, good for getting high. Good for singing to your little brother.

_‘When mountains crumble to the sea,_  
 _there will still be you and me.’_

That was right. There couldn’t be one without the other. If Sam was gone, surely Dean would also cease to exist. His mind tried and tried to imagine it, Sam dead and Dean alive. He felt like an ant looking up the Great Wall of China. It was insurmountable. He didn’t refuse to imagine it. He just wasn’t able to.

_‘Little drops of rain whisper of the pain,_  
 _tears of loves lost in the days gone by._  
 _My love is strong, with you there is no wrong,_  
 _together we shall go until we die.’_

Sammy’s breath was barely there, a weakening hum against Dean’s hands. Tears rolled down Dean’s cheeks.

_‘And so today, my world it smiles, your hand in mine, we walk the miles,_  
 _Thanks to you it will be done, for you to me are the only one._  
 _Happiness, no more be sad, happiness....I'm glad.’_

Peace took him over, the world losing detail with each word he sang into his little brother’s hair, until there was nothing else but one thing, capturing the meaning of all else and giving his conviction incredible density.

Sam would not die. They were not like other people. What they had between them was not like what other people had. As long as Dean was around Sam would have to be alive because Dean belonged to him, body and soul. They might end up spending their lives apart, it still wouldn’t change that.

_‘If the sun refused to shine,_  
 _I would still be loving you._  
 _When mountains crumble to the sea,_  
 _there will still be you and me.’_

“I got you,” Dean whispered. “It’s going to be okay. Okay, Sammy? I'll take care of it.”

The sound of the helicopter reached Dean just as he was about to start singing from the top again. A local ranger had had his leg crushed by a tree. His wife had called for a rescue team, who in turn called for a helicopter. They had just lifted off with the ranger safely on board when they got the dispatch about a young male in critical condition after an animal attack, only seven miles away.

When Sam regained consciousness in the hospital, his first words to Dean were, “Thank you.”

It was the first time Dean could no longer pretend, no longer even wished to pretend that he loved his brother the same way other people loved anyone in their life.


End file.
